The weary musings of a time-served estate agent (realtor) somewhere in the UK. If you want advice on the property market, or alternative careers to this one, let me know, I might reply. In the meantime I'm plagued by cretinous idiots who I work with and for, and who may well feature in my diary at some time.

Friday, July 02, 2010

Windsor Knot - Friday

‘No!’ I holler at hapless trainee F as he stumbles, dishevelled, through the office door, a gnats away from being late. The fool hesitates on the threshold, juddering back and forth with about as much control as my youngest can muster, when he tries to understand the mysteries of the clutch and I try to understand why it costs me £25 an hour. It’s a shame they don’t do dual-control for inept estate agents.

‘What?’ F finally asks.‘Isn’t it obvious?’ I snap back, as everybody else in the office finds a renewed interest in their overnight e-mails. This isn’t bullying. I call it an education. Something the minor public school F’s mother paid countless thousands she couldn’t afford to, palpably failed to provide.

I notice negotiator S making surreptitious hand gestures towards F. She’s far too nice for this game. F looks back at her bemused, a puppy-dog pleading in his eyes as he follows her mime of knotting something for his neck - sadly not a noose.I crack first.

‘Tie!’ I yell slightly feverishly, reaching into the desk drawer for one of a few neutral spares I keep for unforeseen baby sick, leaking pens and food spillages. Or in this case a cretin with the fashion sense of an Orang-Utan. And amazingly, he asks what’s wrong with the over-wide slice of synthetics he’s sporting.

‘Comedy ties are not funny.’ I inform him curtly. What might just work, briefly, on a Christmas morning, won’t last beyond the first outside appointment in the real world. No cartoon characters – not even The Simpsons – no jaunty messages, and definitely nothing that requires batteries.

‘I thought it might get a few chuckles.’ Counters F doggedly. ‘Provoke a conversation or two.’‘Only with the Job Centre.’ I tell the buffoon abruptly, before tossing him the tie I least want back. I confess the paisley period pieces from the 1980s are still somewhere in my wardrobe, but then everyone looked like a joke back then. Thank God I couldn’t grow a proper moustache.

‘Couple of valuations for you.’ Announces S when I hobble back from my lunchtime lope to the paper shop. She doesn’t wear a tie and a fleeting vision of giving her a novelty necklace is swiftly curtailed by my overriding interest in potential business. I check out the two addresses and groan, slightly too loud.

‘What?’ Asks S defensively. She’s probably battled hard to make the appointments so my ungrateful response isn’t any more welcome than the pearls idea would be.One address has sparked my interest, a road I’ve never been to. Even now there are a few left.

The excitement of visiting a new home, even after all this time working the same patch, is akin to that shivery thrill you get when you open the darkened drapes at the holiday room you booked nine months ago. Invariably the anticipation proves greater than the reality – like a lot of things in life – and you end up looking at a dusty car park and some overspill bins from the kitchen, shortly before the column of hungry ants start marching towards the boiled sweets sweating enticingly in your flight bag.

‘The first one looks interesting.’ I tell her, remembering the almost orgasmic joy landing a new instruction that you just know will sell, brings. Then the negativity drenches me like a sudden downpour. ‘It’s just the other place is such a crap location.’‘Everyone has to live somewhere.’ Argues S with just the hint of a pout. Quite a beguiling one as it happens.

She’s right. I’m still learning. And there’s plenty I’d like her to teach me. Only most of it doesn’t include a run-down 1960s-built slew of concrete construction skyscrapers - it’s the wrong sort of erection all together.

I paste on an apologetic smile and thank her for the valuations. After all I visit plenty of places I’d love to live but can’t afford to, so I should remember not to be too picky about semi-slums where I wouldn’t leave my company car, let alone my family.

I’ll try and tie them both in for sixteen weeks. There’s no accounting for taste.

Publications I Write For

Twitter @theagentsdiary

Top 10 UK Property Blog

Book News

Now Available On Amazon:

From the award-wining writer of the satirical 'Agents Diary' Blog and Sunday Times columnist, comes an all new insight in to what happens the other side of the estate agent's window.Discover what property people feel about the public and how best to make your own home changing experience a positive one.Find out how auctions work, how to avoid gazumping and gazundering and meet suspect surveyors, amorous owners and duplicitous buyers along the way.

Includes the agent's guide to buying and selling plus countless tips and advice, together with useful websites to help you win at the moving game.You may never look at the men and women in suits and sign-written cars the same way again. But love them or hate them you can't do without them - or this hilarious insight into the murky world of property.

If this book doesn't make you smile AND save you money on your next property move, you don't deserve your own home...

Also on Amazon. Agents Diary. Available to download for the price of a newspaper, a book length compilation of Blog entries no longer posted here. Visit Amazon's Kindle home page and enter Agents Diary or click this link for UK readers.

Subscribe To Agents Diary

Hit Counter

Followers

About Me

Middle-aged property professional. Twenty-five plus years sales experience. Author of this esteemed blog,who has also written a regular Sunday Times column, a feature article for The Observer magazine together with a now available property anecdote and advice book. The Secret Agent- A year In The Life.
Writing commission enquiries - no sale-no fee - to:
secretagent19@hotmail.co.uk